Making Bias Tape

Oh 

I helped the youth at church with a Jean Apron sewing project using pant leg--cut open to look like an apron--with 1 inch Bias Tape.  

As I was standing in the store, waiting for my fabric to get, I overheard someone talking about a Bias Tape Maker and thought, "I didn't know there was a tool that would make the bias tape? How awesome would that be?"  Needless to say my next stop was the notions aisle where I found the tool that would save me from going insane as I set out to prep 48 strips of bias tape for the youth. 

What is bias tape?

In this case, straight strips of fabric cut squarely and 2" wide. (If the fabric needed to stretch you would cut on the bias to make strips.) Then each strip is folded/ironed 3 times: each outer edge toward the middle and then the strip is folded/ironed in half to make a sandwhich of fabric where the cut ends are in the middle, unexposed.

How does the Tape Maker work?

~The tape maker helps turn the edges over so you can fold/iron them in toward the middle.

¤sing a safety pin in the end of your 2" fabric strip, feed the fabric through the maker, wrong side of the fabric up.

>Lay the fabric strip--with the maker threaded--across the ironingboard.

~Iron the first few inches down carefully.

¤Now keeping the iron a fraction of a inch away from the maker, pull the maker down the fabric and press the edges down as the fabric comes out.

To continue on to the next fabric strip, saftey pin the end of the curent strip to the beginning of the next strip.

¤Pull safety pin through tape maker and iron down the end/begining of the strips.

> Remove safety pin and begin folding/ironing down the fabric strip.